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Al-Qaida-Affiliated Khorasan Group Was in ‘Final Stages’ of Planning Attacks Against the West

The U.S. launched eight airstrikes Monday night against a little-known, al-Qaida-affiliated militant group in Syria, the National Journal reports.

The United States Central Command said Tuesday morning that American forces hit the Khorasan Group near Aleppo to stop “imminent attack-planning against the United States and Western interests.” At a Pentagon press briefing shortly after, defense officials explained just how imminent such an attack may have been.

“The intelligence reports indicated that the Khorasan Group was in the final stages of plans to execute major attacks against Western targets and potentially the U.S. homeland,” said Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. strikes hit the group’s “training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building, and command and control facilities,” according to a Pentagon statement released Tuesday morning.